So, we caught the culprit of all our recent "plant nibblings" in action. Turns out what we thought was a bunch of birds coming and nibbling off the leaves, stems and buds off our remaining deck garden is actually this squirrel (and maybe a couple others). I was able to snap this photo of him/her just before it hopped into one of our trough planters and began nibbling. Just was I was trying to get a shot of it red-handed, Basil caught wind of what was happened and barked this little guy away!

August 23, 2012

In addition to several other vegetable window growing experiments we have going on, we've been trying our hands at growing avocado trees from their pits. Today we wanted to give a full update on how they've been coming along.

August 21, 2012

At the end of last week we explained our endless supply of figs from our neighbor's tree producing in the height of the season. As not to waste them, we've been having fun incorporating them into as many recipes as we can think of — one of which is ice cream!

August 17, 2012

We've been mentioning over the past 2 weeks that we've gotten our hands on a practically endless supply of ripe figs to work with and enjoy fresh from the tree — our next door neighbor's tree that is. Today, we wanted to give all the details about this fig tree and why we feel like we've hit the jackpot!

August 15, 2012

Sunday was centered around a special photo shoot Tim has been preparing for with Peter Chang China Café over the past several weeks. In collaboration with Peter Chang's team, Tim was asked to take food photos of some select new menu items onsite at the restaurant for an upcoming project they are working on.

August 14, 2012

Saturday was Basil's 2nd birthday so today we wanted to share the details from all the birthday festivities and just have a chance to talk about our favorite furry guy. We calculate his birthday by the day he was actually born, not the anniversary of when we brought him home to live with us — that celebration will come in November.

As we head into the weekend, we wanted to share this recipe for summer vegetable hash — as long as you have potatoes, this brunch idea is a hearty way to use up the bounty of fresh vegetables you have on hand. We especially love using up any vegetables we don't have plans for from our Farm Table Box deliveries.

August 9, 2012

Those of you following along might know we've been experimenting with re-growing a celery stalk straight from the chopped off base of an organic stalk we bought from the grocery store almost 5 months ago. You might remember this is where we first started...

August 8, 2012

Sangria has been happening in our house this summer — white sangria (well, rosé by the looks of the picture above) to be exact. We like making batches when we have extra fruit on hand for weekend brunch or a late afternoon refresher. Here's the recipe for the latest version I whipped up.

August 7, 2012

Cool Hunting Video: Kim Rugg from Cool Hunting on VimeoFor all of you feed readers who thought you were going to read about Sangria, Ooops you get this instead. We will get our drink on tomorrow. Obviously we have had too much Sangria tonight.

On our road trip down to Asheville over the weekend, we decided to take the long route down so we could stop as we pleased at antique shops along the way. We
love getting the chance to visit antique shops when we travel, because
we always find unique bits of history to that locale — sometimes you
will find much more of one type of thing versus another just depending
on what region you're in. For example, on our way down to North
Carolina, you may notice we saw much much more tobacco and cigarette
related antiques since the area is known well for its tobacco fields.

August 6, 2012

Early Thursday morning we hit the road for a long weekend visit with some of our closest friends who live down in Asheville, North Carolina. You may remember me talking about Emily before here on the blog — she now lives in Asheville with J, her fiance, who also works at Etsy. All 3 of us used to live in NYC but have since moved back down South.

Last Thursday we hopped in the car first thing and hit the road for a long weekend in Asheville, North Carolina to visit with some of our good friends. Look out for the detailed trip post coming later today!

August 2, 2012

Another small detail update we made to the half bathroom downstairs while tackling painting the walls was taking care of a really little thing that always kind of bugged me every time I’d go into the room — changing out the pink crackle-textured finials on the window hardware that came with the house...

Thanks guys, for all the positive feedback on our newly painted walls! While painting the half bathroom, we took the opportunity to make a couple minor updates and fixes, one of which involved the light fixture above the mirror...

Mary and Tim Vidra, here! Both Richmond natives & do-it-yourselfers by nature, we are continually in search of simple solutions for living more sustainably — sharing ideas, tips and tricks for DIY home decor, urban gardening and cooking.

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